


because i need to know if i still exist

by goingmywaydoll



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Heavy Angst, Jyn Erso-centric, One Shot, Post-Battle of Scarif, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, even mikaela thought it was depressing and she's got a heart of stone, get some tooth rotting fluff ready for when you finish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9624446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingmywaydoll/pseuds/goingmywaydoll
Summary: When the dust settles, how will Jyn react to a mission gone wrong?ora oneshot told in parts, in the before and in the after





	

**Author's Note:**

> so this is my first published star wars fic so im still learning the jargon, so forgive me for the definite mistakes i made, i swear i tried. also forgive me for writing this at all, because it's a sad one
> 
> also thank you mikaela for proofreading it and also in general offering support as i constantly annoy you abt rebelcaptain you're the real mvp

_After_

 

 

“Stop looking at me like that,” she says, pointedly not looking up from the datapad resting on her lap. Cassian is leaning against the wall opposite her bed, his arms crossed as he watches her finger slide across the screen every now and then, filling out a mission log.

“How did you—“ he starts, but she cuts him off.

“I just knew,” she says, inhaling slowly before letting out a shaky breath and tapping the save button on the datapad. The log is sent and she should go to bed now, it’s late and she hasn’t slept for days now.

“I agree,” Cassian says, “You should sleep.”

“I didn’t say—“ she starts, but this time it’s him that interrupts her.

“You didn’t need to,” he says and she still won’t look at him, her eyes trained on the black screen of the datapad.

“Why won’t you just—“ she says finally, running a hand through her hair, shaking slightly.

“What?” he asks when she doesn’t finish her sentence. His brow furrowed now as he looks at her. He pushes himself away from the wall and walks across the room towards her. When he reaches out his hand, she flinches away from him and doesn’t look for the flash of _something_ across his face. He probably masks it anyway.

“ _Nothing_ ,” she says sourly before putting the datapad on the desk beside her bed and throwing the blankets over herself. She curls into a tight ball and faces the wall. When she wakes an hour later, he’s gone.

 

 

_Before_

 

 

“Bodhi, get us out of here!” Cassian’s voice is loud in her ear and her stomach turns as the ship takes off quicker than it’s meant to. She can hear K-2SO protesting about the speed of Bodhi’s calculations, but clearly, Bodhi doesn’t listen and they’re making a shaky jump to lightspeed, speeding away from Jakku and the ‘troopers fast as anything. Jyn nearly collapses, her back hitting the wall of the ship so hard it will surely leave a bruise. She can hardly breathe she’s so winded, air coming out in sharp exhales and her heart hammering too fast to be healthy.

Unbidden, the feel of the ‘trooper’s hand tight around her arm, and the image of Cassian taking each and every one of them out pushes to the forefront of her mind and she shuts her eyes so tight red spots dance across her vision.

When she opens them, Cassian has moved from the other side of the flight deck. She inhales quickly when he reaches for both her hands, taking them in his. Tilting her head up towards him, she wills her heart to slow. It doesn’t work, especially not with Cassian this close.

“You’re alive, Jyn,” he says, a reassurance that she finds she needs.

And then, just when it feels as though her heart is just about to give from adrenaline and exertion and how damn close Cassian is, he ducks his head and presses his lips to hers. The sound that escapes from her lips is not one she’s proud of, somewhere between a sigh and squeak of surprise. She finds herself untangling their hands so that her fingers can fist the material of his shirt, pulling him impossibly closer.

It’s messy and sloppy and Cassian’s fingers are practically digging into her hips and she’s tugging on his hair. He makes this noise against her lips that sends something right through the core of her body, something she desperately wants to explore. Her shirt has come untucked and Cassian’s hands are meeting bare skin and leaving a trail of fire in their wake. Not twenty minutes earlier she’d resigned herself to the lullaby pill sewn into her jacket but right now she can feel his heart beating and she knows this kiss is a reassurance too.

“Oh!”

Bodhi’s voice rips them apart. Cassian is across the flight deck in seconds, backing away from Jyn and running a hand through his already disheveled hair.

“Sorry, I’ll just…” Bodhi backs up into the cockpit, his eyes darting from Jyn to Cassian to the floor. She can’t help it—a laugh bubbles up and her hand flies to her face to cover her mouth. Cassian looks like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and it only makes her laugh harder, so hard tears spring to her eyes. When the laughs subside, she catches sight of the way that he’s looking at her.

“What?” she asks, her face feeling suddenly hot.

“Nothing,” he says, his lips twitching upward before he turns around and ducks into the cockpit, leaving her wondering.

 

 

_After_

 

 

“We’ve just got a new shipment of recruits,” Draven says in her debrief that morning.

“Shipment,” Cassian scoffs. Jyn doesn’t let her eyes flicker towards him. It’s not hard—he’s not far behind Draven, but now he’s moving away from the table and coming to stand directly behind Jyn.

“And?” Jyn asks, one eyebrow raised.

“Respect, Jyn,” Cassian says in her ear just as Draven says, “We’d like you to train them.”

“ _Train_?” she repeats. “I don’t train recruits.”

“Well, we haven’t got the resources to take someone with your experience off active duty and you haven’t passed your psych eval yet. It’s not a suggestion, Lieutenant,” Draven says, his jaw clenched, as it almost always is when he has to talk to Jyn.

“I’ll pass it,” she says, with so much certainly she can almost believe it. “I’m clearly fine.”

“Are you?” asks Cassian, his voice quiet in her ear. She inhales deeply and ignores him.

Draven is looking at her closely, studying her. It almost reminds her of the way that Cassian had when they first briefed her in this very room, except Cassian had been better at hiding the analyzation in his eyes. Draven may be the head of Rebel Intelligence, but he hasn’t been in active duty in years now. She wonders if he’s out of practice, or if he was always just a leader behind the scenes.

“You are dismissed, Lieutenant Erso,” the general says finally. “Report to TR-09 tomorrow at 6 sharp.”

“Is that am or pm?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. Draven’s nostrils flare, but he doesn’t say anything, simply leaving the room before he loses his temper.

“You seem confident,” Cassian says, walking around so he can face her. She’s gotten better at looking at him now, instead of just at the space above his shoulder.

“About?” she asks, crossing her arms.

“You think you're going to pass your psych eval,” he clarifies, frowning slightly.

“There’s no reason I won’t,” she says stubbornly, her eyes flashing in a challenge.

“Not even—“ he starts and she knows where he’s going before he does so.

“No,” she says.

“So you are going to lie about me.”

“No, I just won’t mention you,” she says, shrugging like it doesn’t matter.

“That sounds like lying to me,” he says, a hint of a scoff in his voice.

“It’s not,” she says. “Besides, who’s going to tell them? You?”

Cassian doesn’t seem to have an answer for that, but he does follow her out of the briefing room.

 

 

_Before_

 

 

She shows up at his door the night they get back from Jakku and he answers the same way he does every night—by opening the door and stepping aside so she can enter his bunk. It’s as neat as ever, his parka hanging in the closet, his clothes for tomorrow folded neatly in the corner. He’s already in his sleep clothes and so is she, so she merely crawls into his bed wordlessly. He follows her, but she can tell something feels different. Something _is_ different.

“Are we going to talk about it?” he asks, his voice muffled in the blankets.

“Do you want to?” she asks, turning on her side so she can face him. “We could just…” she trails off, her heart hammering as she trails her fingers up his arm. She watches his throat contract as he swallows, his gaze flickering down to her lips so quickly she wonders if she imagined it.

(She didn’t).

He’s the first one to kiss her (again), but she responds eagerly, her eyes closing as her hand comes to cup the back of his neck. It’s slower than their kiss on the ship, but it doesn't make her heart race any less. She can feel his smirk against her lips when she lets out a small noise after he took her lower lip between his teeth. She decides to get him back for that, hooking one leg over his and pulling him closer, angling her body so it’s pressed against his.

They only break apart when Jyn stifles a yawn against his lips. He pulls away, but his hand still rests on her cheek, his thumb moving softly across it.

“You’re tired,” he says, just barely above a whisper.

“So are you,” she says, and she juts her chin outward, and his lips curve upwards. He doesn’t say anything but instead stretches his arm to curl around her shoulders, tucking her into his side.

“Captains need sleep too,” she murmurs as her eyes slide shut. She can feel the soft rumble in his chest of his laugh, but she doesn’t tilt her head to see if his eyes are closed.

Besides, he’s still there when she wakes, his chest rising and falling slowly, the lines in his face softened.

 

 

_After_

 

 

“You should talk to Bodhi.” He’s in her room when she gets back from her latest mission, covered in mud and blood and sweat. She just manages to glare at him before pulling her shirt off and throwing it in the corner. She has dried blood caked in her nails and she wants nothing more than to stand in the refresher motionless, watching the blood and dirt drip from her body.

“I talk to Bodhi,” she says, sitting on the bed so she can pull off her boots too. She knows he’s fighting the urge to put her shirt in the bin and straighten her boots so they’re not lying haphazardly on the floor, but he doesn’t move from his spot beside the desk.

“No, you don’t,” he says. “You think you talk to Bodhi, but you never say anything.”

“You sound like my therapist,” she mutters darkly as she pulls off her pants too, walking across the room to the refresher and dropping her underwear along the way.

“Then maybe you should try listening to her,” Cassian says and she scoffs, wrapping a towel around herself and turning because she can tell this conversation won’t end if she enters the ‘fresher and she really wants to enjoy this shower. Cassian has crossed the room and she practically runs into him when she turns. Her breath stutters in her throat as she looks up at him and she _hates_ it.

“Don’t touch me,” she says, her voice almost trembling.

“Are you afraid of what will happen if I do?”

“No,” she says, and she means it. “I’m afraid of what happens when you don’t.”

The muscles in his face tighten as he studies her.

“You’re not here, so it doesn’t matter, does it?” she snaps, pulling away from him and pushing past him back into her bunk, tears beginning to pool in her eyes. She shuts her eyes so tight only one tear breaks through. She wipes it away before it can roll down her cheek.

“Jyn…” Cassian’s voice is soft, so quiet she’s not sure how she can hear it from across the room.

“Stop,” she says, her voice cracking. “Please don’t.”

“I _am_ here,” he says, taking a step towards her. She counters with her own step backward, the back of her knees hitting her bed.

“No, you’re not,” she says and this time she can’t stop the next tear that makes its way down her cheek. “You’re not and stop pretending you are.”

“It’s not me who is pretending,” says Cassian and all the breath leaves her body at that, painful and loud sobs wracking through her small form. She lets herself sit on the edge of the bed, burying her head in her hands as she lets the tears flow for the first time since he left.

“Please, just go away,” she says, refusing to lift her head from her hands. “That’s all I’m asking, leave me alone.”

When she gains back even inhales and exhales, and rubs her face, looking up, Cassian is gone.

 

 

_Before_

 

 

He’s going through the flight plan for his next mission, leaning against the wall of the hangar and scribbling notes in the margin to give back to Bodhi when a hand grabs a fistful of his shirt and yanks him down a hallway, into a secluded alcove where it shoves him against a wall. Before he can register who it is, he instinctively goes into his defensive stance, cataloging each of the weaknesses of his attacker.

Really, he should have known it was her the second she grabbed his shirt, she’s been doing it for years now.

“You’re late,” Jyn says, before pulling his lips down to hers. He lets her kiss him for a couple seconds (he’s not complaining) before pulling away and tilting his head to the side.

“Late for what?” he asks. She raises one eyebrow at him and he immediately regrets asking. Instead of letting her respond, he kisses her, his hands on her hips as he spins her around so she's the one pressed against the cool wall of the base.

“Nice try,” she says, pulling away. He can see the reluctance in her eyes and smirks. “We had a shower date.”

“Ah,” he says, remembering now. This morning he’d been called to a debrief just as Jyn had disappeared behind the door of the ‘fresher, her head turned just so as she looked at him through her lashes. The door had shut and he tried to decide if staying was worth the demotion. In the end, he left a note and he hasn’t seen her since.

“All I got was a note,” she says, her fingers playing with the lapel of his jacket. If it were anyone but Jyn, he’d think she was sad, disappointed. Hurt. But this is Jyn and her hands are ghosting lower. Her lip is caught between her teeth as she looks up at him through her lashes like she did that morning. He tears his gaze away from her to check if they’re well and truly alone before tilting his head down so he can kiss her properly.

They don’t last long.

“Cassian.” K-2’s voice is unmistakeable and he can feel Jyn’s frustration as she pulls her lips away from him, her fingers still knotted in his hair.

“Yes, K?” Cassian sounds so fed up with his droid, so tired of the fact that he’s almost used to this happening, that Jyn has to stifle a laugh. Cassian steps away from her and turns towards K-2, rubbing a hand over his stubble.

“You are wanted in the briefing room,” K-2 says, pointedly not looking at Jyn. “And you are late.”

“Sorry,” Jyn says from behind Cassian and he sends her an exasperated but nonetheless amused look.

“I was not speaking to you, Lieutenant,” K-2 says, his head twisting to look at her. “Though, it _is_ your fault.”

“Thanks, K,” she says, rolling her eyes as she brushes past Cassian. “But two can play at that game.”

She just catches K-2’s words to Cassian before she turns the corner.

“My sensors tell me that your body temperatures have increased at an alarming rate. I suggest a trip to the med bay.”

 

 

_During_

 

 

Later, she’ll wonder if it would have been better if she had been on base when it happened, if she hadn’t asked to be put on the mission. Maybe he would have come back, or maybe she’d be approached by a sergeant with the news. No, Bodhi would have told her, made sure that he was the one to tell her.

But now, perched on top of a building on Corellia, with her comms blown out and her blaster in the sniper configuration, she thinks that she wouldn’t be able to believe it if she didn’t see it herself.

Cassian, forced to his knees, his hands on interlocked on the back of his head. They don’t know who he is, or they’d take him for questioning, and he’d die anyway, the lullaby pill on his tongue before they have a chance to realize what he’s doing. She wants to scream, but her jaw is locked shut and besides, all it would do was turn the ‘troopers towards her. They’d shoot her and then they’d shoot him and find Bodhi and Melshi and the others and shoot them too.

Instead, she’s forced to watch as the blaster is raised to Cassian’s head. She’s too far away to hear the sound of his body hit the ground but she swears she can hear it echo in her ears. She presses her hand to her mouth so tight she can’t breathe as the ‘trooper tucks his blaster back into his belt and the squadron walks away. Her muscles are locked and she’s stuck on this roof, her nails digging so hard into her palms they draw blood.

She’s not sure how long she sits there with her hands in fists and her breath only barely leaving her body.

After a while, her comms crackle back to life. Distantly, she can hear Bodhi frantically asking if she and Cassian copy but she can’t get words past her lips. Instead, she lets out a strangled choke. Bodhi is asking what’s wrong, what’s happened, and he’s saying her name and Cassian’s name over and over.

She’s not sure how Melshi finds her on the roof, but she feels his hands on her shoulders nonetheless. He’s saying something to her but she can’t hear him.

Does he know?

Did he see it happen?

Or has he only caught sight of the aftermath just now?

Maybe he heard it over the comms.

She doesn’t speak as Melshi half-carries her back to the ship but she can hear him telling Bodhi to take off. But Bodhi won’t, he keeps asking about Cassian, where’s Cassian, we have to wait for Cassian, we can’t leave without Cassian and that’s when she starts to scream, raw and rough and painful. Bodhi just stands there wordlessly, but Melshi steps forward in an attempt to offer comfort. She almost hits him in an effort to get him away.

They’re going to get caught and they’re going to die like Cassian did if Bodhi doesn’t get this ship off the planet and she screams as much to him. Bodhi’s eyes are wide and brimming with tears, but he turns around and he gets them out of there and when she stops screaming, she slides down to the ground, pulling her knees up to her chest and she doesn’t move for the rest of the flight back to the base.

 

 

_After_

 

 

 

"So, Sergeant Erso." The therapist, a grey-haired woman who speaks in accented Basic and whose name Jyn has already forgotten, is sitting across from Jyn, one long finger hovering above the screen of her datapad.

"It's lieutenant," Jyn says. The therapist raises one eyebrow and Jyn thinks sourly of how she's probably analyzing her tone, along with the way Jyn is sitting in her chair.

"My apologies," the woman says before continuing on. "It's been three months since the mission on Corellia."

"You can just say it," says Jyn, trying hard not to snap. "You can say that it's been three months since he died."

"You could let her off easy," Cassian says. Her jaw clenches and she resolutely keeps her eyes on the woman across from her. She nearly snaps back "No, I couldn't," but stops herself in time. There's a long pause where the woman is looking at her as if waiting for something.

"Lieutenant Erso?" the woman asks, leaning forward slightly and frowning at Jyn. "I asked you a question."

"Sorry, what?" Jyn asks, blinking hard. She can still see Cassian out of the corner of her eye.

"I asked how that made you feel," the woman says and Jyn doesn't bother hiding her snort.

"I feel bloody fantastic about it, thanks," Jyn snaps. 

"You are doing a great job at seeming psychologically ready for the field," Cassian quips and she hides her fist in her lap. 

"What are you looking at?" the woman asks and Jyn starts. She's sure she hasn't let her gaze drift to Cassian this entire time, but the woman is looking at her curiously nonetheless.

"Nothing." Jyn shrugs and leans back in the chair, crossing her arms. The woman frowns again and taps something into the datapad. "I'm looking at you, aren't I?"

"Yes, you are," says the woman, "But you're not seeing me, are you?"

"I'm not sure what you're talking about."

"I think you do."

Cassian isn't leaning against the wall behind the woman anymore, but walking across the room towards Jyn. She wills herself to breathe evenly, counting the seconds it takes to inhale and exhale. Her eyes move to the wall behind the woman, where Cassian had just stood. 

"How long was Captain Andor your partner?" the woman asks after a long pause. 

"Major," Jyn mutters.

"Pardon?"

"Major Andor," Jyn says, louder this time. "He got promoted a month before Corellia."

"Is that when you made lieutenant?"

"Do you actually read anyone's files, or are you just intentionally asking me questions you know the answer to?"

The woman's lips twitch, but she doesn't smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "Would you prefer for me to not pretend I don't know every bit of your life history?"

"I generally prefer it when people aren't fake," says Jyn, sighing.

"Are you going to answer my question?"

"Which one?"

"How long were you and  _Major_ Andor partners for?"

"Three years," Jyn says. "That's how long we've—we had been sleeping together, if that's what you're asking. We lived together for about two and a half, but that's in my file."

"I know," the woman says, tapping out something on the datapad. "I was curious to see how you qualified the word partner."

The room falls into silence as the woman remains focused on her datapad. Jyn taps her fingers against the arm of her chair, her eyes scanning the room to rest everywhere but on Cassian. He's sitting in the one empty chair in the room now, his elbows resting on his knees and his fingertips touching. He's been listening so intently, so carefully, in such a  _Cassian_ way, it almost feels as though he's in the room.

"Do you ever see things?" the woman asks, finally breaking the silence. Jyn raises one eyebrow.

"Are you asking me if I'm blind?" she says and Cassian's gaze slides up to hers, almost disapproving. "Sorry."

"It's all right," the woman says. 

"What do you mean 'see things?'" Jyn asks, though she knows exactly what she means.

"People that aren't around anymore," the woman says, "Your mother, your father. Major Andor. Perhaps I should rephrase. Do you ever want to see them?"

"Would I like to see my dead parents and my dead partner again?" Jyn asks and sees Cassian flinch out of the corner of her eye. "How could you ask me that?"

"I meant, would you ever like to see them but not  _see_ them," the woman explains. Cassian tilts his head, sitting up straighter as he watches her.

"You should answer honestly," he says.

"You mean hallucinations," Jyn says.

"If you like."

"I don't know," she says honestly. "Would it really be seeing them, if they're not there? If I know they're not there, that I can't touch them properly."

"That's a good question," the woman says and Jyn feels like hitting her for all these non-answers. 

"I think," Jyn says and she finally lets her eyes move to Cassian's. The woman isn't watching, instead her finger is ready to type something on the datapad, her head bent. "I think it wouldn't last."

"What do you mean?" the woman asks, still not moving her eyes from the datapad while Jyn is cataloging everything about Cassian and securing it in her mind.

"I mean, it would probably nice at first," she says, biting the inside of her cheek before continuing. "To see them every morning like you used to. After a while, I think you'd get tired. Tired of not being able to touch them, or talk to them when someone else is in the room, or look at them without seeing their—"

"Their what?" the woman asks when Jyn breaks off. She raises her head and Jyn's gaze snaps back to meet hers. "Their bodies?"

Jyn nods because she thinks if she opens her mouth again she'll do something stupid like cry. 

"Do you see Cassian right now?" the woman asks and Jyn can feel herself begin to shake. Cassian stands abruptly, moving across the room to stand by her. "In your mind's eye, do you see Cassian in that street on Corellia?" Jyn lets her eyes move to meet Cassian's quickly before looking back to the woman. She can see him, practically smell him and feel him beside her, and the words feel thick in her throat. When she finally manages to push them out, it sounds choked.

"Yes," she says, because she does, she does see a blaster pointed at his head and can hear the sounds of the Corellian street around her and can feel the wind on the rooftop.

"Why do you think your brain keeps bringing back that memory?" the woman asks. When she doesn't answer, the woman does for her. "I think your brain needs a reminder that he's gone. Am I wrong?"

"I know he's gone, why should I need a reminder of that?"

"Do you? Know he's gone?"

She can see Cassian shift, his brow furrowed as he studies her. He never shuffled his feet like that when he was alive, he wasn't the type. Cassian had stood confidently, resolutely.

"Not always," he says in reply to her unspoken words. "You had a habit of shifting my center of gravity."

"Jyn?" The woman is looking at her, concern written clearly across her features. "Did you hear me?"

"Yes," Jyn says, her voice hoarse. She looks up at Cassian and presses her nails into her palms.

"Yes you heard me, or yes you know that Cassian is gone?"

"Both, I suppose," Jyn says and she finally tears her eyes away from Cassian's to look at the woman. Tears spring to her eyes and she can't tell if it's from the pain in her palms or the fact that when she glances to where Cassian was standing, he's gone.

"Both," she repeats.

 

 

_Before_

 

 

Sleeping late is a rarity at the base. Cassian can’t remember the last time he woke up with Jyn still nestled against him. He’s often not woken up by the chrono but by Jyn’s grumbling and shuffling around his bunk, usually maligning the Alliance for scheduling mission briefs so early. She's been with the Alliance for four years now and with him for three but the passing years don't mean he finds her grumbling any less endearing. And usually, he simply sits up in bed, the fur blankets pooled at his waist and grabs her wrist with a look that’s meant to be a reminder that there’s a reason why she’s here.

It is often accompanied by Jyn falling back to the bed and kissing him, but the mere fact that she’s completely clothed and he isn’t always prompts him to pull away, telling her she’ll be late for the brief. Jyn will scowl, kiss him once more, and storm out the door, muttering about generals and meetings and bureaucracy.

But today is different. Today, his first meeting isn't for another hour and Jyn has the morning off. Today, he wakes up with Jyn’s chin resting against his chest. She’s blowing against his face lightly, waiting for him to wake up.

“Are you going to be conscious at all during our first free morning in weeks, or should I just watch you until your meeting with Draven?” she asks when he cracks open one eye to look at her.

“What can I say,” he says, opening both eyes now and adjusting so he can sit up and look at her properly. Jyn straightens too and tucks her legs underneath her, pulling the furs on the bed around her slight frame. “You wore me out.”

Jyn’s lips curl into a self-satisfied grin as she pushes the fur off her bare shoulder. She’s so close he can see the goosebumps rising on her arms as she moves her legs out from beneath her so she can straddle his hips.

“What do you say, Major,” she says, “Feel like getting a bit more worn out?”

He answers her question by pushing himself up off the bed so he can thread his fingers through her hair and pull her lips down to his.

And later, when Jyn sinks back down into the mattress, her head nestled in the crook of his neck as he twists a lock of her hair between his fingers, Cassian thinks that mornings could become his favorite time of the day.

He doesn’t allow thoughts that start with “if this war ends” and he knows Jyn doesn’t either. But regardless, he knows he could get used to this; their limbs tangled in each others’, her breathing soft against his skin, the comfort in the silence.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry.


End file.
